Just a plastic pen you say?

Let’s be realistic about it, unless we really need a pen to write something down, we don’t give this little wonder of engineering the credit it really deserves.

I can just see the look on your face as you think about the few Rands this plastic pen must have cost, I am about to explain to you why something as simple as a pen, has such a big impact in our corporate lives.

All throughout history, we have needed a device to rapidly scribble something down. You may not realise that with ink pens haven’t actually been around for that long in the greater scheme of things.

I dont expect you to know when the pen was developed so let me take you back about 200 years. If one wanted to permanently record something you needed to make use of a plume and an ink-pot, containing a moderate drying India ink. Imagine carrying this in your pocket on the off chance that you needed to sign something.

Other than the way that fact that this is something you would rather not put in your pocket as due to the giant holes it would make, this was the least of your worries; You would need to hold the book or paper, and your reed pen or plume pen (or later on, your metal nib pen), and the ink pot. When you succeeded in recording something, you would need to sit tight for a few minutes, before the ink would be become dry, and you could go ahead with whatever you were doing. The second choice was that you would go to the closest place where you would have the use of a work area or a table with a coal stove underneath it, used to dry the ink as quick as could be expected under the circumstances, and the greater part of this was done simply to scribble something down.

People were amazed, when Lewis Waterman licensed the first functional wellspring pen in 1884.

This being said, it was without a doubt not the first endeavor for a written work instrument intended to convey their own supply of ink. Actually, the first designs dated back in excess of one hundred years prior to Waterman’s patent, to the most seasoned known outline of a wellspring pen that originated from the hands of a Frenchman named M. Bion, which dated back to the year 1702.

There were numerous more attempts at making a dependable wellspring pen, yet every one of them had the same defects: They were tormented by ink spills and different disappointments that left them infeasible and hard to use. Add to that the way that all wellspring pens started pouring ink when you used them in an air plane (something that was very sought after in that day). It was clear that the world needed something better.

One day a man by the name of Hungarian writer Laszlo Biro considered a different design as he was most likely plagued by these same issues.

The thought of a pen utilizing a fast drying ink rather than India ink came to him while going to a daily paper printing office. The daily paper’s ink left the paper dry and smudge free every time, and It was clear to Biro that utilizing a comparative ink as a part of an alternate kind of composing gadget was the way to go.

At the same time he thought of using a small metal ball that turned toward the end of a tube loaded with this fast drying ink. The ball would have a twofold use It would be able to keep the ink inside the tube from drying, and It would control the stream of the ink as you used it.

In June 1943, Biro and his sibling George, a physicist, took out another patent with the European Patent Office and made the first business model ballpoint pen…The Biro pens. The main ballpoint was conceived, and shockingly since the firs time in history, individuals could take a little convenient device out of their pocket, compose something right away with a fast drying ink and instantly put it away.

Look mom, no stains!

The conclusion is that there is no such thing as “simply a ballpoint pen”. Very few developments have changed the way we are working now as the good old Biro (now you know where the name comes from)